About 3 years ago I started playing poker and kept playing for about half a year until I got tired of it. It felt like I was going nowhere with it and I got a new job that took my energy of it.
I was doing ok, had made about 2-3k$ playing on nl10. I didn't keep it in the bankroll however and I never moved up the limits. Kept withdrawing it to the beer fund.

After being abroad where casinos are legal I got a refound interest in poker. Around the 20th of june I decided to have a look if I still had some money on any of the former pokersites I had used. I knew I had at least $150 at Pacific (which was now 888). They however had stolen most of those money and it was down to like $10. Gave me tilt before even playing a hand.

On to Cake Poker then, where I found I had $22. I quickly blew up two buyins at nl4 and was down to $16. I gave up, put it all on one hand of blackjack. Luckily I doubled up and decided to go back to the poker tables. The $36 was turned into $80 within the day and I decided to move to nl10 (yes, bankroll management and all). I played a very loose aggro donkey style and probably had a hell of a good run.

I've just recently gotten PokerTracker, so bear with me for the lack of graphs for the earlier stages.
I ran the 80$ into 300$ playing nl10 and nl20 within a week, playing like 4-5 hours a day. I tried to take a shot at nl50 but was quickly shot down for 2 buyins. The luck turned and before the end of june I was down to 60$. For a short while I gave up on Cake to play on 888, where I turned the $10 left there into $40 before those funds were seized. Never mind 888 then...
From about 5th of july to 15th of july I had bad/no internet access and couldn't play.

When I returned to civilization (internet) I got back to playing and was breaking even at the cash games while luckily winning two tournaments, profits $98 and $260. Had a BR of about $450 which I managed to burn down to $350 by entering several tournaments and doing badly. I tried cash games again but no luck, kept burning it down to where I only had $300 left. Then I made the decision to move site. Best ever. The problem with Cake is the complete lack of table selection possibilities (few tables), the fact that Americans are allowed (better players) and the flat rakeback which causes the rooms to be filled with rakeback nits. Plus, you can't use a HUD there.

I moved to PokerStars 4 days ago. There I actually started to play solid again, maybe running good as well.

I've played around 5k-7k hands (rough estimate) on Pokerstars, out of which 2822 are played with PokerTracker. I feel I have played much better than I did on cake, mainly because PokerStars have less nits and more lagfish than Cake. Also, after getting that HUD up and running I suddenly found myself being able to fold against the nits where I otherwise would have shoved.

I have decided to be more systematic from now on and actually have a bit of bankroll management. Still, I will not be doing a super nitty bankroll management this time around, nor will I be afraid to move up in the limits.

Simple rule:
More than 20 buyin of next level = move up
Less than 30 buyin of previous level = move down

I will keep this as a rule for at least up to nl100.

Bankroll on PokerStars is currently $497. I could move up to NL25 now but I really prefered the deep stacked ante tables. I've always had a problem with midstacks and shortstacks and on deep tables that problem is removed. And while there might be fewer donks on deep tables, even the donks have to buy in for at least 100BB there. So, for deep nl25 I will wait until I reach 1000. I will probably give some regular nl25 tables a try before that.

And I'm not going to withdraw anything until I reach the point where I can do this for a living in a cheap country. In which case I will withdraw enough for a plane ticket and some living expenses.

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Maniatrix: 31.08.2011 22:26.

Update:
I've reached 10k hands since I got PT3. Amount won in those hands $282 with a BB/100 of 10.2. I've played a total of 39 hours to get to those 10k hands, mostly 4 tabling, sometimes 6 tabling.
My bankroll is currently $680 + €32 being on Pokerstars made from the $300 I deposited there last week, $70 of those were from bonuses.

I am now playing a mixture of nl10 deep and nl25 (normal and deep), wherever I can find most fish. I use the color label feature on Pokerstars and label everyone soon as I get a read/stats on them, this way I can just click on a room and usually I will see from the lobby if there is a lot of the colors I like to see.

Graph

Graph with EV and Win without showdown.

Had my first royal flush and AA is one of my least profitable hands. -$29 after being dealt 34 times, only 99 are worse with -$32. First place goes to 55 with +$82 in 39 times dealt.
Ah well, I guess that will change over a longer sample. My aces has mostly lost in situations being ahead when the money went in, though I have made some crying post-flop calls with them where I would have mucked other overpairs.

This post has been edited 3 time(s), it was last edited by Maniatrix: 31.08.2011 22:25.

I will keep putting my updates for what level I play on and my current bankroll.
It is mostly for my own amusement and keeping track of my progress.
Meh, I removed all the HH's. They would fit better in hand evaluations or downswing department.

Goal by sunday
Cash out $1k from Pokerstars once bonus is grinded ($80 left), deposit $1k into another site and grind another deposit bonus.

Goal for september
Since I have over 1 week of military exercise at the end of the month, this is really just "goal until september 19th". I hope to make it into $3.5k before that but we all know variance can't be predicted.

Goal by january 2012
Having made $10k from poker and play nl100. Withdraw $5k and leave the country to live off poker.

Crazy day... I played an insane amount of hands just to clear off the remaining deposit bonus so I could cash out some and buy PT3 in order to have a HUD working. Someone offered to review a video of my play and I figure it would be best to have stats running.
However, Pokerstars wouldn't let me cashout since I had deposited $10 from Neteller within the last 48 hours just because I thought it was necessary to deposit with Neteller before I could withdraw to it.

So, I just played in mass tabling robot mode on anything where there were people playing at the deep tables from nl10 to nl50, fullring and shorthanded. At least the regs were already color marked and I had some notes on them even though a HUD was sorely lacking.
I cleared the bonus and made over $200 in addition to that with my highest amount of hands, and hours spent playing poker in a day.

I have like $0 in my bank account so I am really looking forward to getting some of these money invested into useful things, like PT3. Well, at least thinking I could withdraw gave me the motivation for a really long session. I definitely need new places to grind now for more deposit bonuses, it does help with the motivation.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Maniatrix: 02.09.2011 13:46.

Anyway it's nice to see you coming from the bottom and working you way up like that. Gives me a bit of hope haha. I hope to be switching to NL10 within 2 weeks.

I assume you are playing nl5? I don't think there is any differences between nl5 and nl10. Slight difference between nl10 and nl25 and noticeable between nl25 and nl50.
Personally I didn't start with proper BRM until I decided to move to nl25, luckily I ran good in the beginning.

Anyway it's nice to see you coming from the bottom and working you way up like that. Gives me a bit of hope haha. I hope to be switching to NL10 within 2 weeks.

I assume you are playing nl5? I don't think there is any differences between nl5 and nl10. Slight difference between nl10 and nl25 and noticeable between nl25 and nl50.
Personally I didn't start with proper BRM until I decided to move to nl25, luckily I ran good in the beginning.

Oh, we keep ignoring him

I like to be ignored. People, who needs them

Well I'm playing NL4 right now. The main reason being I'm playing on a pokersite that doesn't have NL5. But yeah I'm already not really following good BRM because of it, but I'm doing the best I can. Once I reach $200+ I was thinking of jumping to NL10. Not sure if that's the best choice though? I've been butchering NL4 though so I don't see NL10 giving me much of a problem.

How much harder would you consider NL25 and NL50? Like what are the biggest things you've noticed in terms of difficulty?

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Maniatrix: 02.09.2011 22:19.

Today I just struggled with Pokerstars and Neteller. First I go to try and withdraw again but it turned out I had to wait until after the clock was 23:00, so I just watched a lot of crap and waited since I was too tilted to play poker and my 12 hour session yesterday probably gave me overload.

After being put on tilt by Stars I decided to log into Neteller and see if any funds had arrived, only to find out that I had to answer my "secret question" to get a new secure ID. Secret question? Who ever takes that seriously? I will remember my password anyway. So I had use Skype to call them up since my phone was out of battery. After a few minutes of talk I had burned through the $10 left on my Skype credit. I logged on only to find out that the funds had not arrived yet, checked for information on Pokerstars and apparently this will take a few days. So much for using my Net+ card to get drunk tomorrow, I already spent all my "real" money last weekend

Ah, it felt good to rant.

How much harder would you consider NL25 and NL50? Like what are the biggest things you've noticed in terms of difficulty?

I wouldn't say the regs are that much better but the worst thing about nl50 is the reg/fish ratio. At nl10 there is still more fish than regs, even at Pokerstars which allows 24 tables. At nl25 I would say it various, depending on which day and what clock you are playing but it's usually more regs than fish, though a lot of those regs are nits.
Nl50 at Stars is reginfested and I think one of these reasons is exactly that they allow people to play 24 tables. People can play nl50 for a living and they do so mass tabling, this causes 1 reg to infest 24 tables while the average fish just sits at 1 table, do the math. They also fill up every damn waiting list at every table so it takes an hour to get in to a table and once you do all the fish are gone.

Solution for me has been to only play nl50 when I can find at least two proper donks sitting at a table without people in waiting and I immediately leave if there are no donks left. I decided to withdraw $1800 from Stars. I am keeping $1k at Stars and I will put $1k into another pokersite to grind another bonus, preferably a site that doesn't allow people to 24 table. I wouldn't say it's the end of the road though, I've been doing a lot of research about the different sites, profitability and reg/fish ratio and it seems that there is much less of a gap between nl50 and nl100 than nl25 and nl50. I think it is because you can actually make a living off nl50.

Once I reach $200+ I was thinking of jumping to NL10.

Seems like a good idea, don't think you need any more than $200.

Also, this is a great blog.... really enjoying reading about your success!

Thanks for the support, I hope the success continues and I don't tilt off my BR any time soon

My goal is to be out of Communist Boreway by january and I've chosen poker as a tool to do so, I just need to make it into a viable income of at least $3k+ a month first. This would probably support me somewhere cheap like Latin America or Spain if I live modestly, plus I prefer latina girls and they love tall blond guys

This summer in Latin America I spent about $5k in one month, but considering half of that went to hotel bills I guess it could be possible to make due with less.

EDIT: I can't help but edit my posts for spelling/grammar errors, they put me on serious life tilt. Please point out if you see any such errors in order to prevent the poor grammar nazis out there from having a mental breakdown

From today, I resteal with A
2
against BU open raise, he 4bet and this is what goes through my mind:

"I have 3bet him a lot, he must be adjusting to this by 4betting. He is a tight player and must know that is the image I have of him, therefore he probably thinks he can get away with adjusting by 4betting me light. Not going to work! ALL IN FOR THE WIN... Woops, he had aces... DAMN NIT!!!"

More importantly, I got my first royal flush using two hole cards today, and my opponent stacked off

River:($39.65, 2 players) KCO bets $32.00, HERO TIMES OUT AND FOLDS DUE TO BAD INTERNET CONNECTION!

Now I regret not just jamming the turn like another donk. This is just the worst. Bad beats and coolers are nothing compared to disconnection! Why did it have to happen when I bought in for $100 even! That internet connection cost me a difference of $120 provided he would have called my river shove... That's 10 beers on the town, or 24 in the grocery store!